Before there were iPads™ and “smart tablets,” you got your news and non-porn ads from newspapers. Those things were cool — lots of pictures, tons of useless information and you never had to plug it in or recharge it. It was in those newspapers that movie companies placed ads. And in the ’80s, you got gore and slasher movie ads, which were an art form unto themselves.

Author/horror movie expert Michael Gingold (Fangoria, Rue Morgue, Birth.Movies.Death, Time Out New York, Scream, The FrightFest Guide to Monster Movies, Shark Movie Mania), has a new book coming out October 9, 2018 called Ad Nauseam: Newsprint Nightmares from the 1980s, a compilation of all those luridly glorious horror movie/TV ads. And even more frightening is the price: $34.95. In 1980s money, that’s worth the price of nearly 140 newspapers. That’s some serious fire hazard buying power.

I’m thinkin’ that the reprinted horror movie ads are all black and white, which gives ‘em a grindhouse-y aesthetic. The book might have a few color ads, though, (I’m hoping to see The Evil Dead/1981 ads in full blood-esque color).

While we impatiently wait for October (why won’t my homemade time tunnel work? I put new double AA batteries in it…), here are a few upcoming horror movies/TV series that may or may not be worth cutting out of a newspaper or downloaded onto your maxi-iPad™…

WELLINGTON PARANORMAL (July 11, 2018/New Zealand)
“The new mockumentary series follows officers Minogue and O’Leary as a pair of paranormal cops focused not just on vampires this time. New Zealand’s capital is a hotbed of supernatural activity, so Officers Minogue and O’Leary take to the streets to investigate all manner of paranormal phenomena including ghosts, demonic possession and werewolves.”

This is the TV series sequel to the incredibly hilarious What We Do In The Shadows (2014) vampire movie, and will premier July 11, 2018 on New Zealand channel TVNZ. My antennae doesn’t reach that far. Word around the antennae store, though, is the follow-up movie is tentatively titled, We’re Wolves. Flippin’ genius.

OPEN 24 HOURS (2018)
“Mary knew her boyfriend James was the Rain Ripperserial killer. But she felt powerless to act until he forced her to watch another victim being slaughtered before her eyes — and then she set him on fire. On parole from prison despite everyone thinking she was guilty by proxy, and on medication to control her paranoid hallucinations, Mary gets a graveyard shift job at the remote Deer gas station. Then the killings begin. Is what’s happening real? Are they just blood-soaked delusions? Or does she really like to watch people murdered as her ex always intimated?”

Rain Ripper seems like a dumb name for a serial killer. And since when does a pyromaniac get a job at a gas station? That’s like me going to work for Anheuser-Busch. (Note to AB — I totally promise to stay drunk on the job, as I am a company man, through and through.)

THE WITCH IN THE WINDOW (2018/2019/Shudder™)
“A separated father Simon and his estranged twelve-year-old son, Finn, head to Vermont to repair an old farmhouse and encounter the malicious spirit of a previous owner, an infamously cruel woman named Lydia. With every repair Simon makes, he’s also making her spirit stronger…until a terrifying encounter leaves him doubting whether he can protect his son from the evil that’s making its way into their heads and hearts.”

“Infamously cruel.” That’s some serious street cred. Looks good on a resume, though, especially when applying to work for Yelp™.

NOS4A2 (2019/AMC)
“A young female artist named Vic McQueen discovers she has a supernatural connection with Charlie Manx, a seemingly immortal man who feeds off the souls of children and deposits their remains in a twisted holiday village known as Christmasland. Vic sets out to defeat Manx and rescue his victims while keeping her sanity intact.”

This one’s gonna be a TV series (whoohoo — binge time!) on AMC, and is based on the same named 2013 book by Joe Hill, Stephen King’s son. I can see why he didn’t take his dad’s last name — then he’d be “Joe King/Joking”. Heh.

Every since it was announced Jamie Lee Curtis was returning to reprise her role as Laurie Strode in Halloween (first released in 1978), fans have been clamoring in their pants. So much so, fan art for the as yet untitled Halloween sequel (scheduled for October 18, 2018), has been popping up like seasonal measles all over the Internet, the one featured here being one of the better examples. (Don’t know who to credit as they didn’t put their secret identity on it.)

Until the REAL title is announced, we’ll just have to be happy with the official plot: “Laurie Strode comes to her final confrontation with Michael Myers, the masked figure who has haunted her since she narrowly escaped his killing spree on Halloween night four decades ago.”

Meanwhile, here are a few upcoming horror/sci-fi movies that hopefully won’t make you wait 40 years for the sequel…

Looking forward to this one as it stars the brilliantly versatile Denis O’Hare from the American Horror Story series. That guy comfortably wears so many acting hats, I’m surprised his next movie isn’t about a haberdashery, which I believe is a British hat store. Hat is way easier to spell than haberdashery.

ATTACK OF THE KILLER DONUTS (November 17, 2017)
“A chemical accident turns ordinary donuts into blood thirsty killers. Now it’s up to Johnny, Michelle and Howard to save their sleepy town from…Killer Donuts.”

Yeah, but what kind of donuts? Bear Claws seem to make obvious sense. Not so much for maple bars — unless they’re thrown at your head as if a yummy, sticky brick. Still, we’ve already had Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (1978); what’s next — Attack of the Killer Hot Dogs? That actually might be cool, now that I think about it.

SCREAM QUEEN! MY NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (2017/2018)
“A documentary film focusing on the gay experience in Hollywood horror, Scream, Queen! My Nightmare On Elm Street explores how that experience has changed in the three decades since Mark Patton’s controversial portrayal of Jesse Walsh, the object of Freddy Krueger’s latent desire in Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985).”

Scream, Queen! examines the infamous homo-erotic subtext and the special place the film holds in the Nightmare franchise as well as the gay film canon. Partly in thanks to evolving social mores, Nightmare on Elm Street 2 — which was considered controversial at the time of its release — is now being looked back upon with a new appreciation and fondness by horror aficionados and fans of the series. While Freddy’s Revenge, dubbed “the gayest horror movie ever made,” cemented Freddy as a pop culture icon, Patton was never heard from again. After 30 years of living in near obscurity, Patton is back to talk about how his American dream became a nightmare during the homophobic AIDS crisis in Hollywood and why he had to give it all up.”

Just because they showed a male bare bottom being invisibly horsewhipped in Nightmare on Elm Street 2 doesn’t mean it’s a gay horror movie. It’s the scene where Jesse would rather crawl through a bedroom window to “crash” with his bare-chested buddy than have willing, carte blanche relations with his hot red-headed girlfriend.

RESTRAINT (2018)
“A disturbed young woman who plunges into a darkness after becoming unexpectedly pregnant, becoming a threat to her family and herself.”

So much for a second date. Then again, plunging into darkness just might re-heat the leftovers.

Before he used voodoo to transfer his soul into the plastic casing of a child-sized toy serial killer who chased little boys around, Charles Lee Ray (i.e., Chucky) had a girlfriend. Tiffany (played by the gorgeous Jennifer Tilly) is a top-heavy, walking pin-up of an accomplice. I’ll say it for you: she’s got looks that kill.

In Bride of Chucky (1998), the third installment of the Child’s Play franchise, Tiffany promises to help find a living body for Charles to transfer his soul into if he’ll marry her when he’s made human again. That’s one hell of a pre-nup. Due to the size of her, um, ambitions, she has a LOT of takers. (I’m still waiting my turn.)

Retrieving Chucky’s chunks from a police locker, Tiffany sews the doll back together, giving the toy infected Frankenstein zig-zag stitching and an eye socket that looks like an exit wound. But Chucky has other plans other than marriage for Tiffany, which involves killing her and bringing her back to life with voodoo then transferring her soul into a doll. Geez, all they had to do was go to a counselor.

She dolls up (sorry), and gives her new self a sexy makeover and Chucky is about to get lucky. Right before they have doll sex, Tiffany asks, “Have you got a rubber?” Chuck: “Have I got a rubber? Tiff, look at me…I’m ALL rubber!” Still laughing over that one.

Despite all the ancillary killings and blood screams and other tedious stuff, that scene alone should tell you there’s more sequels (Seed of Chucky/2004 and Curse of Chucky/2013). Back to the video store, as I need to know how this is finally, finally, finally gonna end.